“As an example, the Royal Society addresses the question of why Antarctic sea ice is growing,” says Prof Ross McKitrick, the chairman of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council, “but in doing so they present a recently proposed hypothesis as if it were settled science. Failing to admit when the answer to an important question is simply not known does a disservice to the public. We believe that this new paper does a much better job of presenting the whole picture to the public.”

The briefing paper was written by an international panel of climate experts, including two Fellows of the Royal Society. The paper is the latest in a series of exchanges between GWPF and the Royal Society on the subject of climate change and follows a 2013 meeting between experts from the two sides, which was held behind closed doors at the insistence of the Royal Society.